AfterShock Comics has announced The Heathens, a new supernatural adventure series coming in November. The series is written by Cullen Bunn and newcomer Heath Amodio, illustrated by Sami Kivelä, colored by Jason Wordle, and lettered by Simon Bowland. It follows a quintet a hunters from Hell tasked with tracking down escapees from the underworld.
Here’s how AfterShock describes The Heathens:
When evil men and women escape from the depths of the eternal abyss, the Pirate Queen Lady Shih is sent to retrieve them. But when one of history’s most notorious killers breaks free, even she needs help. Enter the Heathens: Shih, Lucky Luciano, Bumpy Johnson, Sofia the Golden Hand, and Billy the Kid. From Hell they came to mete out a justice as dark as their own tormented souls.
The Heathens is the latest AfterShock Comics title from Cullen Bunn, a writer the publisher has in the past described as “unquestionably AfterShock’s most prolific storyteller.” Bunn and co-writer Heath Amodio are also both involved in Hustle & Heart Films, with Bunn listed as the company’s Chief Creative Officer and Amodio listed as its CEO. The Heathens is also the latest AfterShock work for Sami Kivelä, who has previously illustrated a pair of Undone by Blood series with writers Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Bunn described his inspirations for the series, and what he enjoys about working with Amodio:
“Anyone who is familiar with me as a creator knows I love historical figures and time periods. They also know I love infusing stories featuring those characters and time periods with a healthy dose of the supernatural. Heath brought the seed of this idea to me, and I loved it from the jump. It has history, villains, even worse villains, supernatural worlds, and redemption—everything that I could hope for in a book!”
“It’s definitely nice to have a collaborator to throw ideas back and forth with, and when it comes to scripting, Heath and I are able to back each other up. I write the pages that excite me most. Heath does the same. It’s only when we both want to write the same pages that we have to enter battle-to-the-death mode!”
Similarly, Amodio described the impact that working with Bunn has on his own writing:
“Cullen really focuses my writing. I tend to just start writing and whatever’s uncovered is where I go with the story. Cullen is more structured than I am, and that really helps when going back and forth with a story like this. He’s a great writer so working with him the past couple of years has undoubtedly elevated my own storytelling.”
Check out a series of preview pages, as well as an incentive variant cover for the first issue of the series by Andrea Mutti, below. The Heathens #1 arrives with a cover price of $4.99 on Wednesday, November 3rd.
EDIT: An earlier version of this article erroneously listed the variant cover artist as Tony Harris. The article has been updated to reflect the correct cover artist name.